1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and an image processing method, and more particularly, to an image processing apparatus and an image processing method by which noise on a plane part of an image is reduced and at the same time the contour of an edge part of the image is emphasized.
2. Description of the Related Art
In some cases, the boundary of an object included in an image output from a general image processing apparatus such as a digital camera built into a mobile phone, that is, the contour of the image, may be blurred. An image contour denotes a boundary in which the location, shape, size, etc. of an object is changed. Such an image contour has a lot of information about the image and exists at a point where the brightness of the image changes from a low value to a high value or vice versa.
The image contour has been emphasized using a sharpening filter that is suitable for image signals. However, the use of a sharpening filter causes noise generated on a plane part of an image to be reinforced.